During his first visit, Charles McPherson learned that Dr. Blome lived in the apartment adjacent to Blome’s private physician’s practice in Dortmund during the week. On weekends he returned to his home in Hagen, twelve miles away, to be with his family. “His English is excellent and no interpreter is necessary to carry on a conversation,” McPherson wrote in his report. The reason for the visit, McPherson told Dr. Blome, was to offer Blome a contract with Operation Paperclip. “He stated he would definitely be interested.” Dr. Blome requested more details. “He feels he is too old to begin a new type of work and would prefer to return to biological research or cancer research.” Blome alluded to the fact that he had already worked on Top Secret germ warfare research for the British, under Operation Matchbox, the British equivalent of Operation Paperclip. Blome said that the British had helped secure his house in Hagen for him. McPherson left Dortmund with the impression that the fifty-seven-year-old was “very interested but would need a definite offer before he could make up his mind.”
Approximately three months later, on Thursday, June 21, 1951, McPherson again interviewed Dr. Blome. “I presented him with a copy of our contract form and informed him that we were willing to pay him about $6400 per year for the duration of the contract.” Blome had additional questions. He asked McPherson about the buying power of this salary and the amount of taxes he would have to pay. “He then had another request which I informed him that I could do nothing about,” McPherson wrote. Blome said he had “some money which was tied up in a professional account because it had been determined that these are funds of the Nazi Party.” Blome asked McPherson for his help in trying to release the money back to him, and to look into “the possibilities of transferring [the money] from Marks into Dollars,” in order to bring it to the United States. McPherson explained, “I informed him that there was no legal means at present of doing this but that this could be transacted through Switzerland.”
Blome said he needed some time to read over the contract and to discuss the matter with his wife. He said he’d get in touch with McPherson in about two weeks. In August it was official: “Professor Kurt Blome was contracted under Project 63 on 21 August. Will be ready for shipment 15 November,” McPherson wrote. The Blomes took their boys out of school and began teaching them English. Dr. Blome turned his practice over to another doctor in Dortmund. The couple traveled to the Berlin Document Center and provided sworn testimony regarding their Nazi past. The documents were reviewed by McCloy’s office. Per Accelerated Paperclip, a key document that would be used for a visa application, the Revised Security Report on German (or Austrian) Scientist or Important Technician, was drawn up.
The single most important element governing justification of Accelerated Paperclip/Project 63 was now stated on page one: “Based on available records… Subjects have not been in the past and are not at the present time members of the Communist Party.” The issue of being an ardent Nazi had lost first position and was relegated down to section six. There, the issue of Blome’s Nazi Party record was addressed: “Kurt Blome entered the Party on 1 July 1931 with Party number 590233. He is also listed as a member of the SA since 1941 and is a holder of the Golden Party Badge since 1943. His wife, Dr. Bettina Blome, entered the Party on 1 April 1940 with Party number 8,257,157.” It was also noted, “The 66th CIC Central Registry contains a Secret dossier on Dr. Kurt Blome.” Those details were separately classified.
“Based on available records, Subjects were not war criminals but undoubtedly were ardent Nazis,” wrote Lieutenant Colonel Harry R. Smith, an authorized representative of John J. McCloy. Blome was a Nazi ideologue and Smith stated so. He also wrote that Blome was not likely to become a security threat. “It is the opinion of the United States High Commissioner for Germany that they are not likely to become security threats to the United States.” The report was signed and dated September 27, 1951. Two weeks later, on October 10, 1951, Blome’s secret Accelerated Paperclip contract was approved. But on October 4, 1951, the chief of Army Intelligence, G-2, a colonel by the name of Garrison B. Coverdale, read the high commissioner’s security report on Dr. Blome and rejected Blome’s admission to Operation Paperclip. McCloy’s representative, Lieutenant Colonel Harry R. Smith, had failed to do the most important thing necessary when it came to drawing up a Paperclip contract: to lie by omission about Nazi party loyalty. All kinds of phrases could be used to allow the State Department to turn a blind eye to its legal obligation to keep Nazis out of the United States. Most OMGUS security officers knew to write “not a security threat” or “merely an opportunist” in the space that asked about the scientist’s Nazi Party record. After reading the report, Colonel Garrison B. Coverdale sent a confidential cable to the director of JIOA in Washington, stating, “Attention is invited to paragraph 6 of subject report.” In stating the truth, Lieutenant Colonel Harry R. Smith made it impossible for Dr. Blome’s Paperclip contract to be approved.